Publications & Testimony

Whether South Dakota death-row prisoner Charles Rhines (pictured) lives or dies may depend less on whether he was constitutionally convicted and sentenced to death and more on whether the courts value finality more than they value fairness. As Rhines filed two separate petitions in the U.S. Supreme Court and an appeal in the South Dakota Supreme Court on November 1, the South Dakota Department of Corrections announced that his execution, scheduled for the week of November 3, 2019, would be…

NEWS — November 8: Georgia death-row prisoner Ray Cromartie, scheduled to be executed November 13, filed a motion to reopen his federal habeas corpus proceedings based upon new evidence of innocence. Cromartie’s motion contains an affidavit from his co-defendant — prosecution witness, Thaddeus Lucas — that a second co-defendant, Corey Clark, had admitted to having shot Richard Slysz during the robbery of a convenience store. Cromartie was sentenced to death by the jury under the belief that he was…

Ten executions were scheduled to take place in October 2019, more than in any other month in the last two years. As the month closed, however, nine of those executions were not carried out. The 90% rate of warrant failures symbolizes the death penalty’s continuing decline and the widespread problems states are having with its implementation. And with eight active execution dates pending and two other stays of execution in place in November and December, 2019 is nearly certain to become the…

Three U.S. executions were halted on October 30, 2019, as the Georgia Supreme Court issued a day-of-execution stay to Ray Jefferson Cromartie and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (pictured) granted warrants of reprieve to the next two death-row prisoners scheduled for execution in Ohio. The actions capped a tumultuous October in which nine of ten scheduled executions did not take place and federal courts stayed two other executions set for later in the year. Shortly after noon on October 30, the Georgia…

When Attorney General William Barr announced in July 2019 that the federal government planned to execute five prisoners in a five-week span from December 9, 2019 to January 15, 2020, he declared that “we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.” In at least two of those cases, however, the victims’ families and community have said they don’t want the death penalty carried out. In a six-minute video, Earlene Branch Peterson (pictured…

More than 250 conservative leaders from across the country have signed on to a statement expressing their opposition to capital punishment as administered across the United States and issued a “call [to] our fellow conservatives to reexamine the death penalty and demonstrate the leadership needed to end this failed policy.” Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty (CCATDP) released the statement in conjunction with an October 28, 2019 nationally webcast press conference that highlighted…

Supported by the murder victim’s daughter, a Georgia death-row prisoner who is scheduled for execution October 30, 2019 is asking the federal courts to grant him a stay to permit DNA testing that, he says, will prove that he did not commit the killing for which he is on death row. Ray Cromartie (pictured) admits his involvement in the robbery in which Richard Slysz was murdered, but maintains that his co-defendant shot the victim. Cromartie has filed petitions in the Georgia state and federal…

NEWS — October 31: The Georgia Supreme Court has overturned the trial court’s grant of relief and reinstated the death sentences imposed on Nicholas Tate for the murders of a woman and her three-year-old daughter. The lower court had ruled in 2012 that Tate had received ineffective representation from his lawyer in the penalty phase of his trial. NEWS — October 29: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has upheld the death sentence imposed on Texas death-row prisoner Charles Thompson in…

A Shelby County (Memphis) judge has heard argument and will rule on November 18, 2019 whether to allow DNA testing in a case that could show whether the state of Tennessee executed an innocent man in June of 2006. On October 14, lawyers from the Innocence Project, representing the estate of Sedley Alley (pictured) and his daughter, April Alley, urged Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan to release for DNA testing physical evidence that they believe will exonerate Sedley Alley and might identify…

Courts in Texas and Florida have granted stays of execution to two men who faced imminent execution despite serious questions as to their involvement in the murders for which they were sentenced to death. On October 22, 2019, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) stayed the execution of Ruben Gutierrez (pictured, left), which had been scheduled for October 30. The following day, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida granted a stay of execution to James Dailey (pictured…